Ebay’s rise shows exactly what happens to competitors when a network effect gets so strong that all sellers (in this case, creators) and all buyers (viewers) are forced to use a single dominant website.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Miro is a program that consolidates most video sites into one interface. It’s open source and available for Windows, Max, and Linux. I’ve heard of it before but haven’t given it much thought. Today I stumbled across it while…uh…where the hell did I see it? Anyway, I was led to it’s site and and it’s very cool. You can search other video sites within Miro’s interface, as well as download the videos. Not only does it consolidate content from video sites, it also allows you to add your own content. Don’t know how to make videos? They’ve made a site, Make Internet TV, which is aimed at absolute beginners. If you don’t want to host the videos you’ve made, they’ve created their own video site, Video Bomb, so you can put them there.

Very nice, I thought, but why? Why go to all this trouble? The quote at the top of the post touches on this. If Miro takes off nobody will know if a video is from YouTube, or Revver, or Video Bomb. It will be a lot easier for people to associate like content together, whether it’s on the same site or not. I imagine a lot of like-minded people will begin putting their individual shows on one channel to increase exposure.

And thinking even more on the quote, what if someone did this with online auction sites? What if you could search ebay and all the smaller sites at once? If the risk of not being seen on a smaller site were reduced, people would flock to other sites that take a smaller piece of the pie. Ebay would adjust or shut down, but the true benefit would be to the consumers.

So hats off to you, Miro. I hope you do well, and I hope someday your methodology is applied to all online competition.